This movie is about dual parallel stories occurring in Los Angeles in the late forties and again four decades later in the early nineties. The segments that make up 1948-1949 portion are in black and white flashbacks, and focus on the tragic love affair of music composer and conductor Roman (Kenneth Branagh) and pianist Margaret Strauss (Emma Thompson). The opening montage is made of compiled newspaper headlines and clippings that scream about the murder of Margaret (MURDER . . . TRIAL . . . GUILTY . . .). We quickly learn that Roman was convicted and executed for the scissor-murder of his wife. Roman goes to the electric chair proclaiming his innocence. Margaret had been suspicious that ominous housekeeper Inga (Hanna Schygulla) and her strange and stuttering son Frankie (Gregor Hesse) may have stolen jewelry items from Roman. But Inga had saved Roman from Hitler, so she kept her position. In turn, Roman was unhappy that his wife seemed to have taken an inordinate amount of interest with newspaper writer Gray Baker (Andy Garcia).
The early 1990s part involves private investigator Mike Church (Branagh again), who has been asked by Father Timothy (Richard Easton), a priest, to unearth the identity of a woman (Thompson again) who has lost both her voice and her memory. She experiences terrible nightmares. Church had intended to drop off Thompson at the local madhouse, but after seeing conditions there he decided to put her up for a night or two. He gives her a faux-name, "Grace." Helpful newspaper man Piccolo Pete (Wayne Knight) puts her photograph in the local rag. Peculiar hypnotist (and antique dealer on the side!), Franklyn Madison (Derek Jacobi) responds quickly. Now Franklyn believes that a trauma from the woman's past is causing mute amnesia. When Franklyn, with permission from Mike Church, places Grace under hypnotism, she begins to have visions from the 1940s, i.e., Roman and Margaret's life (before Grace was born). Grace soon regains her voice, but not her memory. As she begins to grow closer to Mike, she notices the similarities between their lives and the previous ones of Roman and Margaret. As she looks even deeper into her past, she begins to fear Mike, feeling that – like Roman earlier – he will eventually kill her (as he is apparently Roman re-incarnated). But did Roman really kill Margaret? At a critical point Church tells Grace, "I would never hurt you, MARGARET" (Freudian slip), Grace screams right away.
Cozy Carlisle (Robin Williams), ex-psychiatrist turned supermarket worker, soon warns Mike that he should indeed kill Grace before she kills him because fate is what it is. There are similarities between past and present lives. Reincarnation also means that one may return in a different gender: Grace could be Roman while Mike may be Margaret (heavy stuff here)! After researching, Piccolo Pete tells Grace that her real name is Amanda Sharp, an artist who lost her memory after being mugged. (Note the Salvador Dali copy of his famous painting in her spacious apartment ("The Persistence of Memory"). After, when Mike agrees to be hypnotized, he uncovers a startling secret. When Mike later locates the aged and decrepit Gray in a wretched condition at a nursing facility, he is told that Inga the housekeeper knew everything that went on in the Strauss household. When asked about her and son Frankie, Gray says "They had opened some sort of shop . . . AN-tiques." Mike's utter surprise sets up the denouement. Under Patrick Doyle's rousing musical score, there is a grand operatic clash with slow-motion shots and with cuts between the (black and white) past and (color) present times. It is a bit pretentious, though (but dig those gigantic scissors!).
Yes, the story is complicated and relies on coincidence but it is a good tale, and very inventive. Each of the plot twists is given suitable build-up that avoids viewer confusion. One gets so swept away with the yarn and buys into the story that he/she ignores the coincidences (like Mike's meeting with Grace/Amanda in the first place). The character development is at a high level, while the sets and scenes are imaginatively well-done. Acting performances are first-rate. Derek Jacobi (of "I, Claudius" fame) is excellent as the hypnotist with a sinister agenda. An innovative touch occurs when he puts folks under not just to obtain information about the past, but also to pry from subconscious minds the whereabouts of certain antiques that may somehow fetch him big dollars. Robin Williams, as Cozy Carlisle, believing that the world has thoroughly porked him, leaves no room for anything but the blackest of humor in his top performance. Kenneth Branagh directed, and he and his then wife Emma Thompson shared the lead roles of both eras effectively, with the nod going to the latter. Matthew Leonetti's cinematography is effective at capturing moods. Whether or not you want believe in reincarnation does not matter (this writer does not) as the film's entertainment value is high. But you need to pay close attention to the story!
